Blurt

The guy's glasses kept sliding down his nose.

"So, my schedule is pretty fixed, I don't like last minute changes, and I hate to be late so—would you?" John suddenly found himself with a bundle of soft clinging baby as the guy—McKay, handed her off and pushed his glasses up again. "So as long as you're never late and do your job to the letter, we'll be fine."

If John had been given the text of this conversation in advance, he would've assumed that the guy would be grilling him rigorously during this speech, but actually he was kinda absent-minded.

After pushing up his glasses he walked off down the hall and into the kitchen, just carrying on talking like he was expecting John to tag along. When he did follow, juggling the baby from one arm to the other, McKay was rifling through cabinets.

"Formula, diapers, bottles, sterilisation stuff, band aids, antiseptic cream, antihistamines—as for you, you can eat anything except the stuff in there—" he pointed to a high small cabinet over the refrigerator. "That's my emergency stash; if I find anything gone from there, I'll be mad and you'll be fired."

"Right," John edged in a word, meeting the eyes of the six-month-old baby in his arms. She looked as bemused as he felt. "Get here on time, don't eat your stash -- think I can handle that."

"What?" McKay looked distracted, as if he'd forgotten John was a person who could actually talk, rather than a baby-carrying automaton. "Right. Great. Emergency numbers on the pad by the phone—" he began messily pulling on a tie. "I'm usually back by eight."

"Great. See ya." John said, clearly far too slowly for McKay, because he was already out the door.